The Limits of Understanding
by LloqueTrimalcion
Summary: When Star Butterfly meets with a race of monsters she has not seen or head much about in the worst way possible, it's going to take all her will to bring one of them back into his fold without resorting to extermination.
1. A Baneful Beginning

Star Butterfly was keeping a steady pace as she walked towards the exit down the barely-lit school's main hallway, the sound of her own and Marco's steps being the loudest sound- and often the only one- there. At least, it would have been, had it not been for the fact they were talking at each other.

"A test on One Hundred Years' War already? I can't believe it!"

"Marco, relax, we didn't go through the entire book, it's not gonna be too hard." Star said with a small sigh.

"Of course not, that'd be worse, but that doesn't mean he won't get picky with events and stuff," he said while turning his eyes towards Star "remember, he's the one that failed everyone for not remembering about Italian wars and battles in the Dark Ages."

"Like the date of Charlemagne's Siege of Pavia?" Star winked and stick out her tongue.

"Ugh, yeah, things like _that_ too." he blushed and groaned a little and she giggled in response. But as soon as Star set foot in the large atrium, she heard the echo of someone sobbing somewhere else.

"Huh? Why's there somebody crying now?" Marco turned his head towards its apparent source "it's coming from the corridor on the left, maybe…"

"So it's either in the bathrooms, the Special Ed room or the teachers' lounge and the offices," she resumed moving and, speeding up, she turned to the left "let's take a look!"

"Hey wait!"

Marco panted as he chased her, she opened the door of teachers' lounge but, noticing that the sobbing didn't get any louder nor seeing anyone present in the room, she shrugged and slammed the door close before running off further down the corridor; opening the Special Education's demi-classroom, only to find it as untidy and as smelly as usual, without as much as a trace of the usual inhabitants, thus dismissing it with a gag and a rushed attempt at closing the door; and, finally, opening the girls' bathroom, releasing a wave of strong-smelling floor cleaner along with the almost-blinding shininess of the light green glassed tiles and the eardrum-piercing cry that was coming from one of the stalls.

"This is definitely the place Ma-" she said, turning around to see a red-faced Marco slouching forward and breathing rapidly, stopping next to the doorframe to lean on it and catch his breath.

"I-I'm definitely out of shape." he muttered, before raising his head "Anyways, is that gal here?"

"Yep, now let's go look what's up with her!" she skipped forward to the stall whence the sobbing was coming from, knocking lightly on the door.

There was a choked-up cry, one that sent Star recoiling backwards and made Marco to turn around with a hop to set his hands in position to attack.

"Um… hello…you sound pretty distressed, what's up?" she said unsurely as she put her hand onto the oval flat doorknob. "Do you need any help?"

"I-I'd like to get some help, yes." the girl on the other side said, her crying coming to a stop. "C-come in, it's not locked."

Star hesitantly pushed the stall's door open, finally showing who has been sobbing: it was a girl with black and dark gray clothes that Star didn't quite recognize. Her head, full of dirt blonde hair, was lying on the toilet bowl's seat, she was sitting in a puddle of a pinkish sparkling liquid, her femurs pressed against her chest and her thin arms hugging her legs, with her right hand covered by several layers of soggy toilet paper that created a separate, transparent puddle.

"Uhuh. You look pretty scared, what happened to you?" Star said, blinking rapidly at the scene before her.

"A-a janitor… I-I guess he was one, came here I was leaving the stall and… and…" she let out a very audible whine and shuddered.

"And? Keep going, maybe we can find what to do for you." Marco said, peering into the stall like a curious crow.

"And he pinned me down and whispered things, like, really awful things, in my ears and, suddenly… I felt pain, a short one, but stronger than any other I've ever felt, in a very private place, and at the same time I saw the room turn into my bedroom. I was crying for help, but no one seemed to hear me as l lied there hurting and he was hovering over me with a toothy grin; then out of the blue, the place turned into a dark doctor's room where my legs placed on stirrups and he was a doctor with that one instrument in his hands, I felt very, very humiliated more than in pain by that point… but then I found myself hurting again… when that… hallucination ended he was gone." she turned her head around shakily, big red deer eyes showing beneath her messy hair.

Star gasped and set her hand in front of her mouth.

"You mean he…" she paled and the girl shook her head in response.

"No… at least, I don't think it counts, but he did something else," she, after breaking eye contact, carefully removed part of the makeshift bandage on her hand, hissing and whining while doing so, something that made Marco decide to get a closer look to her.

The skin the girl's right hand was purple-red, with yellow and black-coloured lumps placed in a way that formed a shield-shaped symbol on her hand's back, almost like a coloured cattle brand.

"At least I think he did," she said with a whimper while also extending it forward towards the two "I just know I didn't have this 'tattoo' or whatever on my hand before and it hurts a lot"

Star focused her gaze on the symbol, tilting her head as her mind tried to recognize what she was seeing on the girl's hand, before deciding to help herself and get a closer look to it.

"It looks like a escutcheon, black cross on yellow field," she said under her breath as she kneeled next to her, making the girl whine weakly due to the fact Star was using her right index to touch the symbol "it looks oddly familiar…"

"It does?" she asked with enlarged eyes and with a crack in her voice, retreating her damaged hand "How do you know?"

"Let's just say she knows a thing or two about heraldry, Brittany." Marco said extending his left hand to her "Now gimme that left hand."

"Of course, he got it from me, I know a lot about heraldry-" she paused, shook her head with a blush, then stepped aside, allowing Marco to help Brittany stand up by pulling her up with a fatigued huff and allowing her to place her arm on his shoulders.

"Okay, first things first, do you know this janitor?" he said, taking care to not touch the damaged hand "or at least remember how did he look?"

"N-no, I don't know him, I just thought he was one I've never noticed before," Brittany shook her head, her eyes still looking down "but I can remember how did he look: black hair everywhere like a gorilla, green eyes and a warty nose, and he was wearing jeans overalls and a red shirt."

"Yeah, I don't remember seeing anyone like him coming here regularly," Marco massaged his chin with the free hand "he must have been a plumber or a technician."

For her part, Star stood up and went next to the spot where she found Brittany. She saw a faint reflection in the puddle, but it soon became clear to her that, whatever it was, it did not belong there: she saw herself in the puddle, but her face was covered by a heavy makeup and her hairstyle was extremely elaborate. Stepping inside, she noticed that her boots appeared as high heels in the puddle and her clothes appeared to be a size too small.

"Where did I see this before?" she muttered to herself as she massaged her right temple "concentrate Star, concentrate."

"Alright, and when did this happen?" he asked with his head turned towards Brittany.

"I-I don't know, maybe half an hour ago?" she said sighing, moving her arm away from Marco's shoulders to lean against the wall "I'm just not sure, I can tell you that… this happened just after the last classes."

"Oh, the guy really chose the best moment, didn't he?" Marco groaned "Whatever, he isn't going to get away with this."

"Y-you mean go to the police?" she asked, her legs shaking again.

"Yeah!"

Brittany stared at him silently for a few seconds, before looking down again, shuddering.

"I'd rather not, I want to avoid more trouble right now," her fingers started to constantly shift as she briefly bit her lip, much to Marco's confusion.

"Why not?"

"I haven't been really touched and the way to prove it-" she interrupted herself to squeal and cringe in horror "I'd like to go home right now."

"No, we can't do that, Brittany, we gotta act now and let the police know." he said with a firmer yet calmer voice "Even without outwards signs, what happened to you must count for _something._ I'm sure it won't be too long, just follow me."

"Alright, if you insist." Brittany nodded and sniffled, clenching in her right hand.

By now, Star had now found a memory about a similar thing, something that had happened many years before, when she met a strange family that ate glowing food and that nibbling it caused her younger self to feel an incredible tummy ache and the following lecture by her mother.

"If I'm not losing my memory right now, this puddle may tells us a lot," she said glumly as she turned around and looked at Marco "like that whoever did this was hungry."

"Uhuh? What do you mean Star?" Marco said as he raised an eyebrow and tilted his head.

"The one that did that to Brittany wasn't a human, they were something else: they were a sufferan." she pointed at the sparkly liquid "this isn't water, it's residue from their feeding process."

Brittany stared with wide eyes at Star and Marco squinted his eyes.

"Excuse me but... what?"

"Oh, don't you worry, just gimme a sec." Marco went close to Star and whispered in Star's ear. "Hate to break that to you, but that liquid is probably something much less complicated and much ickier than magic remains."

"I tell you, it wouldn't reflect false images if it was," as she tried to speak in the lowest voice possible and not let out annoyance, she looked behind her, noticing that the puddle of liquid was reflecting Marco with a sleeveless open shirt and short shorts. "Just watch."

Marco rolled his eyes, as he looked down in the liquid, only to stare at his own modified reflection wordlessly, a frown on his face and wide pupils in his eyes.


	2. A Brusque Meeting

With Brittany at her left side and Marco moving in front of her, Star walked towards the police station slowly under the mild spring sun, a plastic bottle with a few drops of magic residue at its bottom in her left hand and the other hand swinging by her side.

"By the way, what is one of them doing here on Earth?" Marco slightly turned his head towards Star "I mean, if they were targeting you, they would've gone straight to you, right?"

"Thing is, I don't think I'm the only thing of interest for monsters and other races living in Mewni, or elsewhere really, here on Earth," she said "for all I know, Brittany here may be just the first of a long campaign to extract pain from humans, instead of using mewnmans and monsters'."

Brittany let out a pained whimper and briefly stopped, causing Star to blush and look away.

"Sorry Brittany." she said, her heart clenching a little at her involuntary action.

"Can we talk about it later, please?" Marco said scowling with a hint of embarrassment in his tone, just before turning around again to notice a sign pole "The police station is not too far now anyways."

"Alrighty then." Star said with a nod while turning where the sign was pointing "I'll wait until Brittany's back home."

* * *

Once Brittany had been escorted inside the police station and left to press charges by herself, Marco and Star left the police station's parking lot and went on their way home.

"Okay, now that Brittany isn't here anymore, let's continue," he said with a heavy sigh "where did I interrupt you?"

"I was saying, I don't know why one of them is here or why did they feed on Brittany, I just know they did." she said as she continously swapped the bottle containing the few drops of that liquid between her hands "I mean, besides a couple of meetings when I was younger, I haven't had much contact with them, nor I was taught about their customs before coming here to Earth."

"Then how do you know it was one of those 'sufferans' and not something or somebody else?" he said eyeing the bottle "Or even, y'know, a hairy bad guy sneaking in the bathrooms."

"Just like the widespread depression left in Preston's wake?" She answered in a likewise tone "Remember, she said she hallucinated being in her bedroom first and at the doctor's second and, well, blood mixed with water tends to turn yellow very soon."

"She could've been still bleeding when we arrived." Marco sighed "But let's pretend a human didn't do it, how can you be sure it's _exactly_ a member of a race of monsters that you know next to nothing about and not a monster in both senses of the word?"

"Because that thing looks like the distilled pain in liquid form I have seen them eating back then, and, as far as I can tell, creating it wouldn't be worthwhile, if it can be done without being a sufferian, that is." Star said with her hands joined behind her back and her head bowed, with the bottle firmly in her right hand's grasp.

"Why do you think it would be hard?" he shrugged and frowned in confusion "Shouldn't guys like, I don't know, Ludo be interested in basically never have to stop to eat again?"

"If I recall correctly, drinking or eating distillated pain would make _you_ suffer." she said with a hint of sarcasm "Ruling out mad people, the only ones that would seek it are the ones that actually consume it to get by. The only thing that sounds odd to is that she described him as really hairy and I remember them scarily hairless."

"Let's wait until investigation on Brittany's case starts," he rolled his eyes, sighed deeply and scowled, shaking his head "we aren't getting anywhere here."

Star nodded in agreement, putting her arms around her sides again and raising her head up, silently suppressing her desire to argue, first by clenching her left hand, then, once that proved ineffective, by looking around her to find a distraction.

The buildings around her were mostly one-family two-stores houses with the same architecture and external structure, with only lawn ornaments and colours telling them apart, and showing very few, if any, signs of life. On the left side of the road, placed in-between two tall wooden fences, there was a public park, with pines placed in a square shape and stone slabs as pavement for the paths and the central area with benches and a dry fountain. The area was mostly deserted, with only a man in a black overcoat and rust red trousers sitting on a bench while drinking something straight from the bottle present in the park.

Turning to the left and stepping onto the stone path leading to the opposite side of the park, Star could not help but notice that the man had flinched a little as she passed - keeping a stare on her for longer than what is considered polite - and that all his bottles seemed to contain sodas of many different flavours in glass bottles too fancy for them.

"Uhuh… guess he's one of those people that make a fuss about the taste of drinks in plastic bottles. Dressed like that, he does look the part." she muttered under her breath as she looked away from him and sped up a little ahead of Marco.

Once she stepped outside the park, Star and Marco turned to the right, and, soon enough, Marco's house and it's recent, bulbous, magical addition appeared to them, meaning they were close to destination.

"Well, at least we can say today was unusual." muttered Star "It's not every day that you see Brittany so distressed, even considering what happened."

* * *

That night, after a quick dinner and some studying and some basic magical training, Star had decided to go to bed earlier than usual to be prepared for the History awaiting her the next day.

Suddenly in the middle of the night, Star heard a knock on her door. She rapidly fluttered her eyelids and rubbed one of her eyes, as she slowly turned her head towards the door.

"Who's there at this hour?" she groaned to herself while focusing her gaze on the door.

"Come in… it's open." she moaned louder than her comment, as she massaged her forehead trying to not fall asleep right away and clear her clouded mind at the same time.

The door was opened with a creaking sound, revealing the silhouette of a man in a police officer uniform. Star's heart skipped several beats and her eyes widened, and she gasped as she scrambled to get her arms up.

"May the blessings of the Heavens befall you, Your Majesty Star Butterfly, heir to the kingdom of Mewni and all its many domains!" he bowed and took off his hat, revealing his bald head shining in the moonlight "I give my most sincere apologies for interrupting your most deserved sleep…"

With her heart speeding up, Star started to look for her wand by touching around her and looking around herself.

"Who are you and what do you want?" she snarled as she realized her sheets weren't hiding her wand, and that they were damp with what she hoped was sweat.

"Oh, I beg you pardon for my uncouthness. I am Annunzio of the house Eppe, count of and constable of Pain Rock, and faithful servant of His Royal Majesty king Masöch the Fourth of House Tabasco, ruler of the kingdom of the Pain Mountains and leader of all sufferiankind." he said, bowing slightly as he kept up his previous ceremonious tone "I am here because your Majesty is involved in a foul crime…"

"That doesn't explain why you're bursting in my room in the middle of the night!" Star's heart accelerated even further and her forehead produced large beads of sweat as she kept trying to look for her trusty wand.

"I was going to get there, but as you wish." he sighed as he walked towards her bed with his hands placed behind his back "My brother, Pustro, has fallen from the grace: what was once a preference for a flavour beget mania and, then, dependence, for he started dressing up like a commoner to obtain more of that poor food. The threats of losing inheritance, not stripping of his title, not assistance in controlling his craving did not work and, regrettably, he has fled here on Earth in order to commit further heinous crimes. You have been involved in his latest action, hence why I am here in this very room."

"Why do you think I know what're talking about? I don't even know this 'Pustro' guy!" Star decided to get up on the mattress and clench her fists and ready her legs.

"I think so because you have a piece of evidence right here," Annunzio said matter-of-factly as he gestured towards the plastic bottle with the sparkling pink liquid "and because the victim apparently described him to you."

"But I didn't do anything to her!" she kicked in front of her, missing him by a few millimeters thanks to a lucky dodge "Get out of here!"

"I did not say you did it or that you were Pustro's accomplice," he said with a snarl as he dodged another couple of kicks "what I did say was that you know that such a crime happened and that you may know enough about the local area and Earth customs in general to allow me and my lower-ranked colleagues to put an end to his streak of crimes."

Star calmed down somewhat, glaring at him as she sat down on her bed.

"Fine then, I guess you can start your investigation by taking that bottle, do whatever you want with it, and leave me alone." she said as she threw her bed's covers over herself and turned her head away from him.

Annunzio bowed his head and turned around slowly.

"As you wish," he said before closing the door behind him delicately "I shall see you tomorrow and discuss the matter in a better, more constructive way."


End file.
